Harry, Ron and Hermione wearily treaded their way from Dumbledore's office to the great hall. As much as they all wished to climb into their beds and sleep for a week, their desire to be with their friends and families was overwhelming. Harry looked at his two best friends and knew that if it weren't for them and Ginny he would be dead. When it really boiled down to the essence of what happened in the forest Harry only returned to the battle because he would have the chance to live the life he always wanted, with Ron, with Hermione and with his Ginny.

Several of the staircases were in pieces, groaning quietly under the stress they had endured. Parts of the castle were open to the elements as they walls had been blown wide open. The number of stray curses that had caused damage to the castle was enormous. All three of them knew it would take months to fix the damage.

The exhausted trio finally reached the entrance hall, with the proud doors of Hogwarts lying, beaten and humbled in pieces throughout the area. There were various survivors milling around as no one was leaving tonight. Minerva and the other professors who weren't hurt had reestablished the wards straight away and insisted that everyone stay for at least a day.

When Harry, Ron and Hermione turned the corner into the great hall, they were once again assaulted with the effects of the bloody war. Families were gathered around corpses, sobbing wordlessly, their grief too painful for sound. Lone fighters sat staring into space, no doubt reliving those terrible moments that had ended only an hour or so ago.

Harry stared around the room at large, seeking for that one face that could make everything alright. He knew that now Voldemort was truly gone that there was no possible reason he and Ginny could not be together. Eventually spotting her leaning on the arm of her father across the room, Harry broke into a labored run, calling out her name,

"Ginny! Ginny! Oh Merlin I missed you!" He didn't care that his raised voice had attracted the attention of the whole room, possibly the whole castle. To him only that special red head existed. And as she stood up and made her way towards him it appeared that she felt the same way.

Their approach was agonizingly slow, as those watching sympathized with their weary bodies, but awaited eagerly at what would certainly be a very passionate reunion.

Harry held out his arms and made to take Ginny into them but was met instead with an arm, rushing out of seemingly nowhere, to slap him hard across the face.

"How dare you come back in here and say you missed me? Why did you even begin to think I would ever accept you back?"

Harry's grin faltered, hurt clouding his brilliant green eyes, "What? Ginny, but I never wanted to break up with you, it was just to keep you safe. You said you understood that."

"Oh I understood that all right. I want to know why you felt you could ever show your face again after you caused everyone so much pain."

At this a shocked gasp ran through the audience assembled and Harry stepped back as if she had slapped him again. He made to open his mouth but Ginny ploughed on,

"It's all your fault. You're responsible for every death, for everything." Then she said the three words which sent Harry's newly found hope and desire to live crashing down around his ears,

"I hate you."

At that Ginny turned and stormed from the hall, leaving only stunned silence behind. Harry stood, head bowed and shoulders slumped in defeat. Hermione and Ron rushed forward, desperate to console him but Harry moved before they reached him.

He raised his head and said quietly, though everyone could hear because they room was so silent,

"It's all my fault. But's she's wrong, I can fix this."

Harry then did something that both amazed and severely alarmed every member of the room, especially those that could see his face. Drained of every emotion, a blank mask had overtaken Harry Potter, but tears streamed unbidden, leaving two trails of despair and sorrow down his face. Harry reached inside his moleskin bag and removed the Elder wand. Any intentions of returning it to Dumbledore's tomb forgotten, he raised it.

Hermione looked on, clearly confused. No spell could awaken the dead, she knew that, Harry knew that, everyone knew that. But still, the way he raised that wand gave her goosebumps, and not the good kind either.

Harry then began to speak again, it wasn't a spell as it was plain English, but the room began to vibrate with power. Harry's eyes glowed as he intoned,

"I can fix this, I can fix this." Over and over again he said it. It was a repeated mantra that was beginning to scare the audience.

Suddenly a light appeared, not from any single direction or source but from what appeared to be the whole castle, including its occupants. The light, if studied closely wasn't white, it was in fact made of many, many hundreds of beams flowing towards the young man in the centre of the great hall.

The light affected every house elf, portrait, student and professor, but they had no idea what was going on. Light also streamed from the castle, from every damaged section, as well as from the bodies of those lost in battle.

If anyone was clever enough to work out what Harry had decided to do, they would have been absolutely horrified. Completely believing the hurtful words Ginny had spoken Harry knew that he had to do something to fix his mistakes. Every death, every injury, every damaged part of the castle was like a physical blow to his conscience.

In a sense Harry, didn't really know how to explain what he was doing, but he could feel it was working. His guilt and the need to fix it, channeled through the power of the Elder wand was enough to dramatically change everything.

Of course, no spell can reawaken the dead. But strength of will and character can redirect the spells that were cast. And that was exactly what Harry was doing. Every misdirected curse that hit the castle, every injury inflicted, every death, he took and redirected to himself. In his head this was the only way to atone for his mistakes, exchanging his life for the lives of everyone who fought.

Harry could feel the 'spell' working as it was beginning to sap his strength. He pushed harder and harder, his guilt over the deaths both tonight, including Severus Snape, as well as those less recent, Sirius and Dumbledore. Harry kept the wand raised, kept pulling all those beams of multicoloured light towards himself, knowing that if he gave up then he would have failed them even further.

When at last the last beam of light had entered Harry's chest and those in the room had a chance to clear their eyes, the most unexpected thing had happened. Every injury, no matter how small had disappeared, healed to the point it was as if it had never happened.

Those outside the great hall when the event had taken place would have seen rooms knit themselves back together, bricks pile up and become walls, doors reattaching to hinges. The castle had repaired itself, in a matter of minutes and it was a truly magical thing to behold.

The injuries that were healed, and the castle that was repaired paled into insignificance when the single most miraculous event in the history of the Wizarding world took place. Every corpse, lying in ceremonial mourning around the great hall sat up. And they weren't inferi either. By taking the reason for their death from their body and placing into his own, Harry had effectively resurrected every lost fighter. In a scene worthy of an Oscar, loved ones launched themselves at those they had given up as forever gone.

In the resulting tumult, nobody heard the quiet whisper of,

"It worked"

In fact nobody noticed Harry drop to the ground moments later, lying as though dead. It wasn't until the blood began to pool that attention was brought back to Harry.

Horrified, Hermione and Ron pushed to the front of the group to see Harry. It was then that the group realized the terrible price that their joy came with. Every curse, every injury had been inflicted on Harry's own body, when he absorbed them. Countless killing curses, both from bodies and the castle walls, werewolf attacks, giant injuries, and other curses such as sectumsempra.

Harry Potter had sacrificed himself to right the wrong that Ginny Weasley had convinced him was all his fault.